Sunrise at Dusk
by charisma5
Summary: AU Season 6. Buffy reflects on the heartbreak she's suffered, and the loss she experiences. she also realizes that as a Slayer, she was meant to live a painful life.


Sunrise at Dusk  
  
By: charisma  
  
Summary: In an AU Season 6 finale, Buffy reflects on the heartbreak she's suffered and the loss of everything she once cared about. She realizes that her life was never meant to be more than that of a Slayer, because anything else would hurt too much. *Warning: The story contains some gruesome scenes. It you can't handle gore, than please don't read this story.  
  
Disclaimer: Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. You know the whole drill.  
  
Feedback: Yes sir, or madam. I would be forever in your debt (but I don't do chores, so scratch that from your mental list. Did you do it? Thanks).  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"I'm tired of unhappy ever-after endings. I'm tired of make believe heroes. I'm tired of waking up here."  
  
~*~*~*  
  
I've always heard the saying "It's darkest before the dawn." Honestly, I used to roll my eyes whenever someone uttered those lame words. Really, what exactly does that mean in literal sense? But as I sit here now, amid piles of splintered wood and cracked plaster, the night pitch black right before the dawn approaches, I have to admit that at least figuratively, that saying is true. I mean, the sky turns the darkest before the morning appears, the inky color thick and choking, only the moon breaking through the black blanket, the stars hidden in the opaque soup. And only one who was actually looking, only one who walked through the dark night after night, would notice such a minute detail.  
  
But that's me, the person that notices every little thing. Guess its part of the Slayer job description.  
  
Funny I never noticed it before. Maybe I can only see it know because in my heart I'm hoping that the saying will hold truth in the way I want it to, the way I need it to, if it does in scientific sense. After all, science is never wrong. Sure, religion can be, and so can geography, art, history, English. But never science, because science is proven facts, facts that people have tested and know exist. Honestly though, I don't know how someone like me can even be saying that crap. Look at me as a Slayer. I can prove that demons exist, that witches roam this earth, that legendary monsters like werewolves and vampires do actually want to eat humans.  
  
I don't see a Nobel Prize sitting on my dresser.  
  
Willow destroyed everything that was standing in this town. She blew apart buildings and homes, ripped apart families, and stomped on the ashy remains. Laughed at the chaos and destruction, had a good belly roll cause she was the one who caused it all, all the pain and anger, all the sadness and despair. Deep inside, somewhere, she knew that what she was doing was wrong. She knew that the things she was doing were irreparable, that nothing would ever be the same again. But that witch inside her, that dark demon festering in her soul and eating away her heart, smiled and told the driver to go faster. What could anyone do but stand by, terror etched on their faces as she cackled insanely and wreaked havoc on innocent people?  
  
I'll tell you what. Nothing. Nothing at all, because she's strong, so unbelievably strong that that kind of strength shouldn't even exist. Add crazy, lunatic bitch to the mix, and she's literally unstoppable. No, no literally. She just is. I tried to stop her, and all I got was a blackout as my body was thrown into the side of a brick building. I wake up, and that -that- that thing, was torturing my goddamn sister. Smirking as Dawn screamed in utter pain. Oh god, I'll never forget those screams for the rest of my life. So full of anguish, so heart-broken, so full of pain and disbelief. And I just stood there, watching, because I couldn't do anything else. My best friend was killing my sister, so slowly that she probably wished she were dead. And the sickest part was, more sick than Dawn's intestines spilling out in lovely patterns across the dirty cement lot, or the color of Dawn's brain, was the fact that Willow enjoyed it. She liked hearing the sickening squelches of wet organs, or the scraping, bloodied screams.  
  
And then she went to poor Xander, my sweet, steady Xander. Ripped of his face clean down to his neck, and played with his eyeballs. I couldn't move, my mouth gaping open and silent tears coursing down my pale cheeks. But I did start retching, my body convulsing and heaving as she opened his chest up, telling me to take a peak at his insides. Even when my stomach had nothing left to bring up, I gagged, my throat tearing up and hot blood welling into my sour tasting mouth. I couldn't look as she mocked him, teased him for never loving her back when they were younger. I couldn't look as she ripped his heart out, and still beating, held it up in her wet, red hand, laughing like we used to back in high school. Even when I close my eyes, all I can see is the blood, so red and thick as it dripped from her white hand and splattered onto the floor below.  
  
Poor Xander. He'll never get to see the sunrise again.  
  
I'm babbling incoherently now. I don't even realize how much the deaths of Xander and Dawn will hit me. Hopefully I never do, and I just stay in blissful shock forever. My body numb and cold, my insides frozen, my heart unbreakable. I can't even cry anymore, because my eyes won't produce anymore tears. I cried to much after Willow finally killed Xander, than told me she would let me live because she wanted me to have to bare the pain forever. Gave me that insane smile while she walked away from me, and the broken bodies of Dawn and Xander. I just sat on the ground, unmoving, my face as cold and silent as a mask. Over and over, I could only ask myself why she did it. Was it me? Was it the fact that I couldn't bear staying on this harsh Earth? Or was it because she wasn't strong enough to realize that people die, and you can't do anything to stop it?  
  
Whatever the reason was, it nearly drove her insane.  
  
So here we are, back in my old neighborhood. Old, because there's nothing left of it. I walked onto this street to find smoldering fires and black smoke, houses crushed and bodies strewn among the rubble. All because of my dear friend Willow. All because she decided that she had magick, and that made her better than everyone else. Well, I have Slayer powers. Does that make me better than anyone else? No. You know why? Because my powers are a curse, a spell that binds me until the day I die. I'll never know the simple joys of taking a walk with my normal husband and our kids on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Or yell at the TV when the show escaped convicts and rapists because I think that that is the worst thing roaming my city streets. Nevermind big, scary monsters, or blood-sucking vampires. I don't want to have to learn how to use machetes and crossbows and Samari swords. And Willow, who could be normal, who could live a life filled with sweet words and sunny days, chooses to live in the darkness, amid her spellbooks and enchantments.  
  
Those same people who say that phrase from before also say that we don't ever realize how truly lucky we are. Oh, how more right could they be.  
  
The sun is almost peeking over the horizon. Long rays of butter yellow and light pink dance in the black sky, and the moon is starting to fade. For all the nights that I've hunted and slayed, I never once just enjoyed the sunrise. It's truly beautiful, with all the magical colors and hues, the whole sky lighting up in mere minutes. From opaque black to clear yellow. I guess that analogy can go for more than the sky. Willow, good, sweet Willow, went from an innocent soul to a destructive demon. And in a way, so did I.I used to love life, even though I was handicapped and limited in most ways. But after I came back, my heart died, and I was left with this bottomless pit called my heart. Everything that went in was sucked to the bottom, into that obscene blackness, just like the night sky. And nothing ever came back out again.  
  
See Spike, I can feel, you arrogant bastard. I do know how to cry.  
  
Oh, Spike. When Spike comes back, if he comes back, what'll he do when he finds out about Dawnie? He will kill Willow if someone else doesn't first. I can't kill her, because somehow I know that my Willow is deep inside, buried under magicks and hate. And if I kill that witch, than I kill the one person I have left in this world who truly cares about me. I could never do that. So I'm left here, wallowing in my own misery and anger, sitting on a pile of scrap wood that used to be my house. Where is the poetic justice in that? Tell me. And perhaps, the biggest irony of this all is that as a Slayer, I'm supposed to be alone, and separate from the human race. But I made friends, friends that I loved and risked my life to protect. In the end, the greatest evil I faced turned out to be my friends, and I can never beat them. Ironic, if I do say so myself.  
  
I sigh once, twice, waiting for the night to be over. Such a terror filled night, such a despairing reminder of what I failed to kill. But back to the saying in the beginning, the one I laughed at and mocked. It's always the darkest before the dawn. Well it's dawn now, and still all I can see is bleak despair and numbing shock. Dawn only makes things seem better, because in the night everything is scarier, more evil. In the day, nothing ever goes wrong. How ironic is that, because the devil's greatest success was making people believe he didn't exist. In the day, he thrives, and I can't fight him there, because I'm a creature of the night myself. Well, all the darkness is gone now, but I still feel black inside. I still feel like that inky blanket coats my heart, that I'll never be able to get rid of it. But maybe, like Willow, it was meant to haunt me forever, eating away at my soul.  
  
Or maybe it's there to remind me that I was born a Slayer, and I'll die a Slayer. Nothing can ever change that.  
  
  
  
~FIN~ 


End file.
